What role does political protest play in political radicalization in Germany?

To answer this question, we examine radicalization and protest dynamics from different perspectives, with particular emphasis on the interaction between Islamist, radical right wing and radical leftwing mobilization. Our protest monitoring goes beyond traditional data collection and systematically combines three levels of analysis: events, discourses and actors.

First, we examine protest events, focussing on questions such as: When, where, by whom and around which topics does protest occur? What part does politically motivated violence play in the German protest arena? What spatial references and focal points both transnational and regional - can be identified regarding radical forms of protest? Second, we examine the discursive contexts of political protest and radicalization. Which actors, thematic fields and patterns of interpretation are discussed in connection with radicalization in the German public sphere? Which conflicts and escalation dynamics shape the debates? Finally, we look at the radicalized actors and ask which socio-structural characteristics, life courses, group affiliations and mobilization structures are associated with individual radicalization processes.

The project is part of the research cluster “Monitoring System and Transfer Platform Radicalization” (MOTRA), which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Federal Ministry of the Interior as part of civil security research.